cinezip set diary - February 2001
A report by an extra from the GONY set:
"I barely recognized Leonardo DiCaprio. When The Beach went out to the cinemas in Italy, I was abroad and I had not had the opportunity to observe the obvious transformation of the Romeo of the future. My image of DiCaprio was therefore still tied up to films as Marvin's Room or Man in the Iron Mask or still to Titanic. He appeared without warning, tall at least a meter and 80, very wide shoulders, with a solemn gait and amused. What struck me a lot was the head, indeed very large. He had long hair, some locks were picked up in a beautiful hairslide of leather, the very pronounced arched eyebrows framing together with the cheekbones two celestial eyes that justified the usual sighs of all the girls on the set. A beautiful boy there is no denying it, very grown, this is perhaps the first film in which we will see him relatively bearded, but with the ability to also appear twenty years old, having twenty-seven of them.(He has Leo's age wrong) His costume in the scene was very similar to mine, certainly he was the head of the Dead Rabbits, I was a Dead Rabbit and this meant two things and two good things: more possibilities to appear in the film, and more days of work. We immediately were struck by the ease of the actors while almost regardless of the hundred extras present, they spoke to each other, playing and not hiding a strong American slang. We will never forget the fights of karate between DiCaprio and Cameron Diaz between one take and the other. Other days we were employed for the dance, a disaster at the beginning! Imagine the choreographers trying to teach the waltz to all of us, falling to pieces, but very comic, also because DiCaprio and Cameron Diaz had to dance between us and while he had to recite the part of an embarrassed one simulating heavily stepping on her feet, between us the denied there were indeed, but the everything favored the truthfulness of the scene".
Translation by Pax - thank you very much !
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